Re: the (IMO ridiculous) comparison of Chandler to MacDonald:
MacDonald
isn't susceptible to parody precisely because he is NOT
influential in the
genre in any serious, long-term way. I say this even though
I've enjoyed
many a MacDonald book. No one parodies a figure labo(u)ring in
obscurity,
which, if MacDonald wasn't then, he is now. People parody the
big guns, of
which Chandler is one, and MacDonald is not. I say this even
though
MacDonald and I are both Michigan English Ph.D.s, and as I say,
I have a
fondness for his work.